308 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



interest which he took in them, and in the furtherance of their pursuits. 

 His pubhshed works will suffice to secure for his name an honorable 

 and permanent place upon the records of science. But only his con- 

 temporaries and friends will know how much he has done to help 

 others, and how disinterestedly and gracefully that aid was ever ren- 

 dered. 



The Foreign Honorary Members whose eminent names no^ dis- 

 appear from our roll are Baron Plana, Professor Mitscherlich, Pro- 

 fessor Henry Rose, Jacob Grimm, and Archbishop Whately. To 

 these must be added the name of the eminent Russian mathematician, 

 Ostrogradsky, of whose death during the preceding year the Academy 

 was not informed until after the last Annual Meeting. 



Baron Giovanni Plana, Senator and Director of the Royal 

 Observatory at Turin, died on the 20th of January last, at the age 

 of eighty-two. 



He was born at Voghera, Piedmont, November 8th, 1781, but re- 

 moved to France in his childhood. He entered the Ecole Polytech- 

 nique at Paris in 1800, taking the rank of eighth among the candidates 

 admitted. The instructions and influence of Monge, of Lagi-ange, 

 Laplace, and Legendre, must have contributed powerfully to determine 

 the direction given to his powers, which afterwards proved him no 

 unworthy successor of these illustrious men. While yet very young, 

 he received an appointment as Professor in the Military School of 

 Alessandria, near his native town. Subsequently he became Professor 

 of Astronomy and of the Higher Mathematics in the University of 

 Turin, Directed" of the Royal Observatory, and President of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. In 1821-23, he was associated with Carlini in the 

 measurement of the arc of the meridian in Savoy and Piedmont. The 

 account of the plan and execution of this work, prepared by Plana, 

 received the Lalande prize of the French Institute. 



The numerous memoirs given to the world by Plana during his long 

 and active career, embracing a great variety of investigations in the 

 more-difficult departments of physics, pure mathematics, and astronomy, 

 testify to the versatility of his talents, and the unwearied industry with 

 which they were exercised. Eveiywhere the treatment is by the 

 hand of a master, and the subject receives some important advance- 

 ment ; yet it did not fall to his lot to attach his name to any of those 

 brilliant discoveries which are the foundation of scientific fame. In 

 point of number, his researches in astronomy, even including those 



